


here, beneath my lungs

by readymachine



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Bellarke, F/M, Fluff, Unresolved Sexual Tension, season 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-07
Updated: 2016-12-07
Packaged: 2018-09-07 02:01:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8778790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/readymachine/pseuds/readymachine
Summary: Clarke doesn’t have time for love. Not when there’s only four months until the end of the world.





	

Clarke doesn’t have time for love. Not when there’s only four months until the end of the world.

She watches the people around her give up. Sees them glutton themselves on moonshine and food and sex with no thought to the future because for them, there  _ is _ no future. But that is not who Clarke Griffin is and there are so, so many people relying on her, so she squares her shoulders and focuses on survival and tries to ignore how attractive Bellamy Blake is because this is not the time.

She slips, sometimes, though. When she’s tired or hasn’t eaten in one, two, three (?) days, she’ll find herself counting the freckles across the bridge of his nose or tracing the cords in his neck with her gaze or focusing too acutely on the warmth radiating from his form when he sits next to her during council meetings. She daydreams sometimes about a future with Bellamy. Casually holding his hand or curling up beside him in bed. Seeing that loose smile of his spread across his face and light him up from inside like a burst of sunshine (God, when was the last time she saw him smile? The last time any of them smiled?).

But this is  _ not the time _ . Not when Bellamy can’t keep his eyes from scanning the forest for a glimpse of long dark hair through the leaves. Not when Roan’s scouts are already reporting black rain falling to the west. Not when Raven and Monty are working so hard to map their escape to the north. Not when there is so little time and so much to do to prepare for the evacuation. Just not...not  _ yet _ .

Just yesterday, though, she watched Bellamy lift the bottom of his shirt to wipe his face as he helped haul supplies and despite her best efforts Clarke can’t stop thinking about the hard line of his hips for the rest of the day.

_ Today _ , Clarke gets Abby to cut her hair. The showers at Arkadia are in dire need of repair, but no one is willing to do the work with the end of the world fast approaching. The water that pumps through the creaking, cracked pipes often comes out the color of rust and is lukewarm at best. Clarke only uses them when she has to rinse mud, blood, or sweat out of her hair, but it’s grown to be such an inconvenience that she finally convinces her mother to shear off the bottom six inches. She’s left with a long bob that makes it easier to deal with the rising heat, but also the persistent itchiness around the neck of her shirt that always accompanies haircuts. She ignores it for the first two hours of the day, but by the time the sun is high in the sky she has had enough.

She tells Abby she’ll be back before nightfall and leaves the camp, heading to the east for the pond the delinquents used as a fresh water source before the Ark crashed from the sky. She takes a pistol strapped to her hip and a change of clothes in a pack at her back. She doesn’t worry about Grounders hiding in the trees anymore. They seem to be focused on their own survival more than the wars and killing that had filled so much of their lives before. The end of the world had a funny way of bringing people together. Clarke thinks that Lexa might have been proud to see her people now, working together to ensure the survival of as many as possible, but Lexa is still a wound in Clarke’s chest that she is unwilling to touch and so she turns her mind to the thought of the cool water of the pond and how nice it will be to feel  _ clean _ again.

By the time she sees the water through the trees she is drenched with sweat, her hair plastered to her forehead and her clothes sticking to her uncomfortably in all of the wrong places. She bitterly thinks that it’s a good thing their evacuation is leading them north because she does not think she could ever get used to the oppressive humidity she’s being subjected to. She’s aching to slip into the pond and dunk her head under the surface of the water and scrub away the grime that is stuck to her like a second skin. She’s so focused on that one idea that she’s already dropped her pack and pulled her shirt over her head before she realizes she’s not alone.

She sees Bellamy before he sees her. He’s five yards away with his back to her, up to his knees in water with his wet hair slicked in odd angles all over his head. He’s only wearing soaked boxers hanging low on his hips and Clarke has suddenly forgot how to swallow because she has never seen Bellamy Blake without his shirt on and he has dimples set just over the curve of his ass that she wants to press her thumbs to. She should leave, she thinks, before he turns and sees her standing there shirtless, gaping at him like a horny teenager (which, fine,  _ she is _ ), but she is also desperate for a bath and the choice leaves her torn. He turns and spots her before she can make a decision either way.

For just a moment, Clarke could swear that time actually paused in its relentless march on. Bellamy stares across the space at her with water cutting down the slope of his cheekbones, his eyes fixed firmly on her own and not straying down to the tattered half of a tank top she’s been using for a bra and the gratuitous amount of cleavage she knows is on full display. For her own part she’s determined to match his gaze and  _ not _ ogle the tight muscles of his shoulders or the broad plains of his chest or the line of dark hair disappearing into the elastic of his shorts. She feels a flush spread across her chest that she cannot blame on the heat.

“You cut your hair,” Bellamy finally says, his voice an octave too low. He clears his throat and does not move his eyes.

“Oh,” Clarke responds dumbly, her fingers coming up to touch the edges of the style. Her arm lifts the weight of her breast with the motion and Bellamy’s gaze bounces down for just a moment. Long enough for his expression to flicker to something unrecognizable before he’s back to looking at her face. “Yeah, Mom cut it.”

“Were you…?” He motions to the water instead of finishing the sentence. The tips of his ears are turning red, his cheeks are tinged pink. Clarke almost wants to laugh at the absurdity of it all. Almost wants to run away. Almost wants to sprint across the space between them and kiss him so hard that she forgets the radioactive cloud heading for them. Wants to only focus on him and how nicely his body would slot against hers.

“Yeah,” She says instead, her feet rooted to the ground. “Yes.”

“I’ll leave,” He says, nodding mechanically and clenching his jaw. He does not move.

“You don’t—” Clarke stops with a soft exhale. This is a line she should know better than to cross because the world is ending and this is  _ not the time _ , but Bellamy is staring at her with an intensity in his dark eyes that she can’t quite comprehend. “You could...stay?”

Her voice is pitched too high. The sun is too hot across her shoulders. Her heart is beating bruising codes against her ribs as she waits for Bellamy to react.

But she’s said something wrong.

His face closes immediately, his eyes dropping to the water at his feet and his shoulders stiffening.

“I can’t,” He says, his voice strange. “I’m sorry.”

He moves to the shore quickly, grabbing his clothes from their neat pile on the sand. Clarke watches silently as he haphazardly slips on his pants and boots, something that feels too close to rejection burning hot in her stomach.

“I’ll see you at camp,” He calls over his shoulder as he slips his shirt over his head and disappears into the treeline. Clarke does not remember if she makes a noise in response.

She waits for her heart to return to its natural rhythm before quietly walking into the pond and slipping her head underneath the water. She will concentrate on working her fingers through the snarls in her hair and try to forget the thick muscles of Bellamy’s thighs. There will be time later, maybe, when they’ve finally saved the world. Just not right now.

-

Bellamy knows he’s not worth saving. He knew it when he watched Octavia leave the throne room, when he saw Jasper cradling Maya’s melted body, when he watched his mother get sucked into the cold nothingness of space because of his mistake. So Bellamy knows that he’s not going with the evacuation and he’s prepared for it. Really. He’s just finding it hard to tell Clarke.

It’s probably a bad time, he thinks as he stands outside the door to her quarters, but there’s less than three months before they have to leave and she deserves to know. He owes her that. He’s been dodging her for weeks since seeing her at the pond (only partially because he can’t stop the image of Clarke out of breath, sweaty, and half-naked from filling his mind every time he sees her), but he knows that he can’t keep it up.

He’s also selfishly hoping that after the busy day she had in medical she won’t be able to put up much of a fight against him. He swallows hard and knocks.

He’s not expecting the door to swing open at his touch. His mind immediately flips to overdrive, thinking of the radiation sick Grounders currently holed up inside their walls and how so many of them still call Clarke  _ Wanheda _ with hatred in their eyes.

“Clarke?” He asks, wary. There is no response on the other side of the steel.

He thumbs the holster of his gun at his hip and slowly shoulders the door open, bracing for the worst.

Instead he finds Clarke curled up asleep in her bed, her hair fanned out on the pillow beneath her head. She’s breathing in deep and even, her expression more peaceful than Bellamy could ever remember seeing her. She looks softer in sleep. Younger. Like she’s supposed to.

She’s also not wearing pants.

Bellamy can see them crumpled with the sheets beneath her feet. He thinks she must have kicked them off as she gave in to sleep. He knows he should leave. He knows he’s intruding on a peaceful moment here and there are so few peaceful moments in their lives and he would rather die than steal a moment of peace from Clarke. But there is a wanting deep inside of his bones that he does not know how to shake out. He takes a stolen, shameful moment to catalogue the expanse of creamy skin. The bruises creating a soft painting of blue and purple on the palette of her knees. The tiny white scar on her upper thigh. The edge of her underwear peeking out from under the hem of her blue henley. A tiny voice in his head thinks how nice it would be to stay and lay beside her and bury his face in her hair.

But this is  _ not allowed _ .

Bellamy closes his eyes, realizing that he’s been holding his breath. He does not let it out until he turns and leaves the room, closing the door silently behind him. It is dangerous to think this way, when there are only a few precious weeks left before she’s gone. He will find another time to tell her.

-

Clarke notices Bellamy pulling away from her. It’s her first indication that he’s not planning on evacuating with them. Suddenly he always has an excuse to leave as she is walking up to him and he never meets her eyes anymore. But her and Bellamy are partners and she cannot imagine any future without him right there with her and she needs him to know that before he makes any stupid decisions. With that in mind, she organizes it so Bellamy comes with her to Trishana territory when she goes to meet with the clan leader. She tells him Indra’s guard last saw Octavia in the forest near Trishana’s camp. It’s the only reason he decides to join her.

“You were in there a long time,” Bellamy says when she emerges from the Trishana hut as the sun hangs low beneath the trees. His eyes skim the branches as he says it.

“They’ve changed their minds,” Clarke replies, fighting to keep the weariness from her voice. “They’re only going to send ten of their people with us now instead of forty. They say they’re the guardians of the forest and they’re going to stay with it until it’s reclaimed.”

“Then why send the ten?”

Clarke looks up at him in the dying light. His face is lit in golden rays and Clarke longs wildly to paint him. She wonders if she would ever be able to get the freckles over the bridge of his nose just right. She wonders if she’ll ever paint again.

“They want their story to live on, even if they don’t.”

Bellamy exhales, shaking his head.

“More space on the lifeboats,” He mutters. He adjusts his gun in the crook of his arm before he starts walking purposefully into the forest.

“You want to go back tonight?” Clarke calls, starting after him. “They said we can stay here if we need to.”

“You can stay,” He replies over his shoulder. “I need to find my sister.”

Clarke huffs, picking up her pace to walk beside him. He strikes a hurried march between the trees, keeping his eyes constantly scanning the gaps between the wood. But the light is fading fast and by the time Clarke decides to speak they’re walking in darkness.

“Octavia’s just mourning, Bellamy. She’ll come back when she wants to.”

Bellamy pauses and shifts his shoulders, skirting his gaze briefly to her knees.

“She won’t want to,” He says, almost too low for her to hear. “Not if I’m still around.”

“Hey,” Clarke says, moving closer to him. “She’s just mad. Once she has time to clear her head—”

“There  _ is _ no time, Clarke,” He’s exasperated, the words leaving him in a snap. He stops his pace through the woods and he turns to look at her with shining eyes. “We have two months— _ two months _ before all of this will be  _ gone _ . Wiped out. And I need to find her. I need to know she’s going to be safe, okay? I need to know that she’s going with you.”

He realizes his mistake a moment too late. She can see it on his face in the way he realigns his features into a blank mask and stares determinedly at a spot just above her right eyebrow. She knew this would happen. She knew what he was thinking, but panic still wraps a vice around her heart and squeezes.

“That she’s coming with  _ us _ , you mean,” Clarke says, her voice dangerously even. 

Bellamy does not respond.

“Bellamy, she’s coming with  _ us _ .”

“She won’t go with me.”

“You’re her  _ brother _ .”

Something that sounds terribly like a laugh gets stuck in his throat.

“She won’t go with me,” He repeats.

“ _ Bellamy _ ,” She manages. She needs to tell him that she can’t do it without him. That she  _ won’t _ . She needs to tell him that he can’t just  _ leave  _ her because somewhere over the last ten months they’ve been on the ground Bellamy Blake has become someone she absolutely  _ cannot _ live without and she needs him to know that.

She opens her mouth just as the forest softly sighs and comes to life around them. Everything lights up lambent shades of blue and green: the moss beneath their feet, the mushrooms clinging to the trees, the flowers dug deep into the soil. It is so, so beautiful and soon it will be gone and she will not let him stay.

She looks to Bellamy and he is looking at her. She can see the weary lines set into his tic of his jaw and the slouch of his shoulders and the curve of his eyes.

“Do you remember the drop ship?” He asks quietly. His features are lit in shadows and blues and he is so, so beautiful and she will not let him stay.

“Of course,” She responds.

“It was easier then, wasn’t it?”

Clarke exhales through her nose, trying to control her breathing. Trying to figure out what words to say in what order to keep him with her.

“It was easier because we had  _ each other _ , Bellamy. Everything we accomplished, we did  _ together _ . We kept those kids alive  _ together _ . You can’t— _ I _ can’t—”

Bellamy steps forward suddenly, reaching out to take her by the shoulders. He fills her vision, his head bowed and desperation hiding somewhere in the corners of his lips. She feels electric and cold all at once, his palms small suns burning against the thin material of her shirt. He is solid and hot against her and she cannot lose him and  _ she will not let him stay _ .

“No,” He says, simply. As if two letters could possibly make her stop. “ _ You’re _ the leader, Clarke.  _ You _ will keep our people safe. I’m not like you. Everything I touch—”

He pulls his hands off of her shoulders as though he’s burned her, leaving them hovering above her for just a moment before he lowers them to his sides with tight fists. Clarke’s skin prickles, immediately missing his weight.

“Other people will take my place,” He continues. He still won’t look her in the eye. “Better people.”

Clarke swallows a sob, tears of frustration prickling at the corners of her eyes. She wants to shake him until he agrees to come with her, or to tie him up somewhere safe where she can take him away when they leave, but mostly she just wants him to  _ want _ to stay with her. She wants him to choose  _ her _ .

Impulsively, deliberately, she lifts a hand and smooths her thumb around the curve above his eyebrow. The rest of her fingers card delicately through his hair, trailing around the shell of his ear as her palm comes to rest at the corner of his jaw. Bellamy shakes at her touch, his lips parting in surprise at the contact. His eyes have jumped to hers at last, bright and wide in the dim light. Clarke raises her other hand to the dip between his neck and shoulder, hoping he doesn’t notice how much she’s trembling. She moves her thumb softly over the smooth plane of his cheek and he leans into her palm tentatively. There is an aching in his features, an openness that makes her lungs tighten. She wonders when the last time someone touched him with love instead of violence was.

“ _ Please _ ,” Clarke whispers into the space between them. She is not sure who she says it to anymore. All she knows is that Bellamy Blake is warm against her skin and she needs him. She  _ needs _ him, and that is all that matters.

Bellamy swallows hard, the sound wet. He turns his head in her hand and presses the ghost of a kiss against the tip of her fingers before he suddenly steps back. She thinks she might see a tear running parallel to his nose as he turns, but it might just be a trick of the light.

“We need to get going,” He says, his voice rough. He begins to walk through the forest, his profile fading into the darkness beyond the grove of light.

Clarke casts a final glance around the delicate expanse of bioluminescence surrounding her before she rushes after his retreating figure. He does not speak to her for the rest of the trip despite her attempts. His eyes remain on the trees.

-

It has been an  _ excruciatingly _ long week.

Bellamy shuffles through his door to his quarters on numb feet and sets his gun and jacket on the table next to him. He had been out with Indra for days tracking Octavia and, despite their fragile truce, Indra had taken every opportunity to cause Bellamy discomfort. They had spent five sleepless nights in the forest chasing Octavia’s shadow before Bellamy found a single page from Lincoln’s notebook stuck to a tree with a rough knife. Octavia’s slanted scrawl simply spelt “LEAVE.” So he had.

He’d left Indra to her search, assuming that she would have better luck making contact with Octavia without him there. He just needs to know she’s leaving with the evacuation. He will face the end of the world with a smile, so long as Octavia is safe.

But right now he just wants rest.

He collapses face down on his bed, trying and failing to kick his shoes off without exerting any effort. He gives up after three tries, beginning to accept that he will sleep with his muddy damp boots on when his door suddenly bursts open and Clarke Griffin strides in. Her cheeks are pink from running, her hair a mess around her face, her eyes wide as she sees him sprawled on the bed. Bellamy’s too tired to fight the small smile that cracks his features when he looks at her because he has not seen her since their walk back from Trishana’s camp and he knows that she probably ran here as soon as she heard he had returned and he has missed her terribly.

“You’re back,” She says breathlessly.

Bellamy grunts a noise in response.

“Did you just get in?”

Bellamy grunts again.

Clarke frowns.

“Bellamy, we need to talk.”

Bellamy groans, closing his eyes and digging his face into the scratchy blanket beneath him. He knows that she’s here to continue the discussion they had started in the glowing forest. She’s going to try to talk him out of staying behind, try to convince him to jump on the lifeboat with her and head to the mythical sanctuary in the far north. And if he’s being honest, part of him  _ wants _ to go with her. Wants to stand beside Clarke Griffin as she leads their people to safety.

But then he remembers Lincoln, and Monroe, and Roma and Sterling and Atom and Wells and the rows of graves behind the wreckage of the drop ship. He remembers Maya’s bloody face and the children in the Mountain that he murdered. He remembers Octavia’s scared eyes looking up at him at the Unity Day dance. He remembers his mother.

And he knows he cannot go with her.

“We can talk later,” He says into his blanket, he voice muffled by the fabric.

Clarke sighs and Bellamy can hear her shift. Bellamy opens an eye to look at her and finds her with her arms crossed and a pout on her face. He should probably tell her to leave, but she’s adorable and he’s a nightmare and he is so very, very tired.

“I’m not leaving until we talk about this,” She says defiantly, raising her chin at him.

“You’ll be standing there for a while, then,” Bellamy responds grumpily, the last word getting swallowed by a yawn he tries to hide. He attempts to kick off his shoe again and fails.

“Look, you can’t just—”

“ _ Clarke _ .”

Her name comes out more of a whine than Bellamy was aiming for but it makes her stop. She looks up and down the length of him and sighs, striding forward and sitting on the edge of his bed by his knees. With great effort, Bellamy rolls over onto his back, closing his eyes against the  bright light overhead. He can feel her hip against his leg, her weight on the mattress pulling him towards her. He always finds himself pulled towards her.

“We can talk later, I  _ promise _ . But I’ve been walking through the forest for five days and I haven’t slept in six and I just need a second, okay?”

He gives one final, valiant effort to toe his shoe off and finds himself bested once more. Beside him, Clarke shifts and he feels a tug on his feet. He thinks to protest, but then she slips his boot off and he almost feels like crying at the comfort. She pulls his other boot off, dropping it onto the floor beside its twin. Bellamy seriously considers telling her he loves her until he feels her climb onto the bed next to him and his tired eyes creak open. She settles herself with her back against the wall and her legs stretched out in front of her, effectively boxing him in.

“Your feet stink,” She says down at him. He smiles despite himself.

“Then leave.”

“No. I’m not leaving until we talk.”

Bellamy nods and yawns and turns back to his side. His forehead rests against Clarke’s thigh, his hands curled up next to her knees. He thinks of how nice it would be to put his head in her lap and let her card her fingers through his hair. He thinks he should ask her to leave, but she is warm and he is tired and he loves her and  _ that’s _ why he can’t go with her and maybe he will tell her so just as soon as he wakes up.

But four hours later, when the dreams of blood wake him from sleep with shaking hands and a tense back, Clarke is asleep beside him with her hands resting lightly against his side. He mouths all of the words he wants to say but can’t and hopes that maybe they’ll seep into her dreams. She does not stir beside him.

-

Clarke is in Medical when she hears that Octavia has been brought in. She asks for confirmation from Kane twice before she runs towards lock up.

Bellamy’s already there, of course, standing in front of her smaller form with his arms slack at his sides. Octavia looks wild, her hair gnarled with leaves and her eyes wide in fury. She’s screaming at him as Clarke approaches.

“—eft me where I was! I didn’t  _ want _ to come back and I didn’t want to see  _ you _ ! Just  _ leave me alone— _ ”

“Octavia, please, just listen to me—”

“ _ No _ ! After what you  _ did _ ?”

“O, Lincoln wo—”

Octavia pulls her fist back and swings it forward, her knuckles smashing into Bellamy’s cheekbone. He sways on his feet but makes no move to defend himself.

“YOU DON’T SAY HIS NAME!” Octavia is screaming, her teeth bared. “YOU NEVER GET TO SAY HIS NAME!”

She pulls her fist back again and Clarke moves quickly. She pushes into the space between Bellamy and Octavia before the blow connects, throwing one hand out to smack Octavia’s elbow aside and using her other to push Octavia back a step.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?!” Clarke yells, throwing an arm behind her to stop Bellamy from rushing forward to her like she knows he will. She feels her palm spread against his chest, the thin fabric of his shirt bunching between her fingers.

“Clarke, don’t—” He starts, and she can feel the rumble of his voice between her fingers.

“No,” She says solidly, keeping her eyes on Octavia’s twisted face. “I’m not going to let her hit you again.”

“Get out of the way, Clarke,” Octavia growls. “I’m leaving anyway.”

“No, you’re not,” Clarke responds. “The world is ending. You need to come with us when we evacuate.”

Octavia tenses, her eyes darting between Clarke and Bellamy.

“I’m not—”

“If you don’t come with us, you will die, Octavia. It will start with headaches and nausea. A fever will set in, then seizures. Your hair will fall out, your skin will blister and peel, and you will die. It might take a month, maybe two weeks, maybe two days. There is nothing for you in those woods. Come with us. Help us build something that can  _ last _ .”

Octavia deflates slightly, but her eyes stay sharp. She stares into Clarke’s face for several silent seconds. Clarke holds her gaze and does not blink. She can feel the rise of Bellamy’s chest pause against her palm and she knows he’s holding his breath. Finally, Octavia drops her eyes to the ground, her shoulders folding forward.

“Nothing’s worth it without him,” She whispers. Bellamy exhales.

“Do you think he would want you to die alone in the forest?” Clarke asks. “Or would he want you to fight to stay alive?  _ Ge smak daun _ ?”

Octavia sighs, rubbing her face with the sleeve of her torn jacket.

“Octavia,  _ ge smak daun _ ?”

“ _ Gyon op nodotaim _ ,” Octavia responds.

Clarke nods.

“You’ve got to hold on to that, Octavia. You’ve got to—”

“I don’t want to talk anymore,” Octavia shakes her head and turns around, pacing a few steps away and crossing her arms over her chest. “Not to you.”

“Okay, but you have—”

“ _ Okteivia kom Skaikru _ .”

Clarke turns her head to find Indra standing at the doorway of the cell, her face hard and her hand on the handle of her sword. Octavia swings herself towards her mentor but keeps her gaze to the ground. There is a brief pause between them.

“ _ Maftaop ai _ .”

Indra sweeps around and strides away, not waiting for an answer. Octavia hesitates, glancing at Clarke and Bellamy before rushing after Indra’s retreating form. Clarke waits until she disappears around the corner before she drops her arm and turns to face Bellamy.

She’s startled by the look on his face. He seems half in awe of her, half angry at himself. His cheek is slightly swollen, a bruise already starting to form. Clarke picks a hand up and runs her fingers tentatively over the red skin, lingering too long there, she knows.

“You’ll bruise,” She tells him, her hand slipping down his jaw as she pulls it back to her side. She remembers the feel of his lips against her fingertips two weeks ago and she clenches and unclenches her fist and hopes he doesn’t notice. “She shouldn’t have hit you.”

Bellamy’s expression does not change.

“Not the first time,” He replies.

“It shouldn’t have happened then, either.”

He shakes his head, but keeps his eyes on her. He reaches out a gentle hand and wraps his fingers loosely around Clarke’s wrist.

“Thank you,” He says quietly, almost painfully. His eyes are dark in the harsh overhead light of lock up, his curls hanging low over his brow.

There are only two weeks before the evacuation and she still has not gotten him to say he will come with her. There hasn’t been  _ time _ since the night he had fallen asleep next to her with his face tucked into her hip and she had fallen asleep next to him counting his steady inhales. He was gone when she had awoken, though the bed was still warm. And there will never be time, really, for her to accurately tell him what he means to her, because he is so savagely entwined within her that she can’t even begin to articulate it. She started on the ground with him, both of them angry and desperate and wanting something better for their people, and she needs him to stay right there beside him. She can’t do it without him.

“Come with me,” She bursts out, a fierce, pleading tone in her voice. “Come with  _ us _ , Bellamy. You can’t stay here to die.”

Bellamy blinks slowly, as if waking up. She expects him to shut down, expects his face to phase into the blank mask she knows too well. Instead, he slumps and his eyes close against her gaze, his eyebrows pulling together.

“I can’t go with you, Clarke,” He whispers.

“ _ No _ ,” She says, twisting her fingers around the loose openings of his jacket. “ _ Please _ , Bellamy. We need you.  _ I _ need you.”

He scoffs out something like a sob, probably remembering a fight from a lifetime ago in a claustrophobic bedroom when there was so much pain between them that it had become a chaotic, suffocating force. Surely he knows that they only  _ work _ when they’re together? Hasn’t he figured it out?

“They don’t need me,” He replies instead, keeping his eyes closed. “ _ You _ don’t—”

“ _ Stop _ , Bellamy. Stop. I know it hurts. I know it’s hard to  _ want _ to keep going because there’s no guarantee that it’s better there. But I want you to do it with me, because I can’t do this without you, okay? We started here together, just us and those kids in the dropship, and I need—I  _ want _ you. Because I  _ won’t _ imagine a future without you right there next to me and I swear to God, Bellamy Blake, I will tranq you and drag you with me if I have to because you are too important to me and I will not let you lay down and die.”

Bellamy opens his eyes wide and stares at her with his jaw clenched tight. He does not speak, instead opting to hold her stormy gaze with his own. She wraps her fingers tighter into his jacket to keep her arms from shaking.

Finally, his lips quirk, and there are tears in his eyes.

“ _ Ge smak daun _ ?” He says, the syllables strange in his deep voice.

“Get back up,” Clarke responds in a whoosh of air and a brilliant smile, feeling like her legs are going to collapse beneath her from relief. She wraps her arms around his neck and buries her grin into his shoulder instead. He does not hesitate to slip his arms around her waist and pull her close. She can feel him press his nose into her hair.

“Just stay with me,” She whispers to him. “We’ll be okay together, I promise.”

She feels him nod against her. The stay like that for a small eternity that sloppily cuts itself into the shape of a minute. She feels as though they have passed lifetimes when he finally pulls away, hastily wiping away the tears on his cheeks. She leaves hers where they are.

“You wouldn’t have been able to tranq me,” He says with a small laugh, his eyes sparkling. Clarke just smiles.

“Whatever you have to tell yourself, Bellamy.”

-

Bellamy hates the cold, but he supposes it’s a small price to pay to escape the end of the world. At first, he had loved the snow. Loved the crunch it made under his boots when he walked through it, loved the way it looked in the early morning as it fell softly down, loved the smell of it even. But that quickly wore off and Bellamy finds himself missing the green of the forest and the heat of the days and he really, really misses having dry boots because this is absolutely ridiculous.

He ducks into his cabin as afternoon fades to night, ice sticking in his hair and his socks soaked through. They were lucky to find this group of structures, somehow untouched from the bombs and still standing after nearly a century of weather. They needed some fixing up, sure, but the group of evacuees was a hardworking bunch and they had begun settling in nicely and making this their new home. He’s surprised to find it warm until he spots Clarke crouched down in the corner, poking life into his small fireplace. He watches her from the doorway in silence for a stolen moment. Her back is to him, but the firelight illuminates the crown of her head like a halo. Her coat is thrown onto his bed and she’s wearing a blue shirt that he is sure belongs to him. Or maybe he just wants it to be his. He wants to see Clarke be as comfortable in his clothes as her own.

“I’m still surprised you can start a fire,” He says with a smile, shrugging out of his own jacket and hanging it on a hook near the door. “Considering you failed Earth Skills and all.”

If Clarke is surprised, she does not show it. Instead she shakes her head.

“Don’t believe everything Wells told you,” She responds. “I didn’t  _ fail _ . I just didn’t think I’d need to know how to start a fire for another hundred years.”

Bellamy smiles and crosses to his bed, sitting on the edge to untie the knots of his shoes with frozen fingers.

“So, to what do I owe the pleasure, Princess?” Bellamy asks, tearing his boots off and stretching his feet out towards the fire. Clarke finally turns towards him, leveling him with a glare that has no heat behind it. The flames cast her face in soft yellows and orange light, bringing out the tint in her hair and the red of her cheeks. He could stare at her for hours, just like this, cataloguing every curve and slope of her face. They have  _ time _ now. Time that he never thought they would have.

“It’s just amazing, isn’t it?” Clarke says, a small smile spreading across her face. “I mean, that we made it? I keep waiting for—for, I don’t know, giant radioactive bears or something to come for us, but right now we’re doing really good, right?”

“I guess you finally saved the world.”

She stands and turns to him, taking the small stride forward to slot herself  _ just _ between his spread knees.

“ _ We _ saved the world, Bellamy.”

Bellamy shrugs lightly, but can’t help his grin. Clarke reaches out tentative hands and brushes his hair back from his forehead, dislodging some ice chips that fall from his temples and slide down the edge of his cheekbones. She stares down at him, her eyes bright as her fingers drop across the plane of his jaw. This is a moment he wants to remember, he thinks. This is a moment that made the whole damn struggle worth it: just sitting here on his bed in a warm cabin with his people safe outside and Clarke Griffin staring at him like he’s the sun. It still hurts, of course, remembering the ones they left behind who couldn’t face the uncertainty of their future. It still hurts to see Octavia avert her eyes and walk past him like a stranger. But there is time now where there wasn’t before and while it won’t heal all wounds, it will certainly help.

Clarke pauses with her palm against his cheeks and he can’t help but turn his face and place a small kiss against the skin. She breathes a laugh and leans forward, pressing her lips tenderly against his. Bellamy smiles against her, bringing his hands to her waist to pull her closer. She trips over his boots and falls against him, giggling. Bellamy laughs, too, kissing her throat before claiming her mouth again.

He knows there will be other times, other gentle moments like this with Clarke, but he still kisses her slowly, softly, trying to memorize every bit of her. And the next morning when they wake up wrapped around each other and Clarke slips Bellamy’s shirt over her head to get ready for the day, he thanks her with a kiss before she walks out of the door and hopes she understands. He knows now that there is a future in this spot. Better, there is a future with  _ Clarke _ , and he will savor every moment between them because he knows know that they will always travel the ground as they came to it: together.

**Author's Note:**

> readymachine.tumblr.com


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